


A Roomba With A Knife

by aquabluejay



Category: Messiah Project - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Not really super violent or romantic but taged on the safe side, Set somewhere between Hagane and Shinku, There's a Roomba, just go with it you'll understand, lonely sad Misu, probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:30:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6745072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aquabluejay/pseuds/aquabluejay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The damn thing was screwy. That made sense though, considering who had programmed it. It also had a three-inch knife attached to the front of it. Oh yeah, that was special Amane crazy, <i>definitely</i>. Misu might have become fond of Amane, but the guy had a few screws loose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Roomba With A Knife

You can’t see a city, not really. Can’t see the forest for the trees, that’s the saying; it’s meant to comment on shortsightedness. But is there really a forest when you’re in it, or are there just a lot of trees? What’s the sense in naming cities when they’re all so much the same - when they’re all growing together anyway, expanding year by year until no one knows where one ends and the next begins? If Misu were to get up and go to the window he could look out at the city. But what’s the point when all that’s visible is the next decrepit buildings across the narrow street? He could name it, but the name of the city isn’t important. There are no cities, only buildings on streets like this one. Hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands of streets like this one every one harboring informants and assassins - for terror cells and for the government. And every one slipping steadily into disrepair, while the wealth and powerful got richer and fatter up in their penthouse suits and top floor offices. The only time you can see a city is when you’re looking down on it. They have names for districts, cities, provinces, all the pieces they cut the country up into - dividing it up between themselves and then devouring it greedily in bite sized pieces.

Misu does not get up to look out the window. He stays in his seat on the dusty, threadbare couch, and doesn’t let his hand curl into a fist where it’s draped casually across the back. He resists the urge to get up and punch something - probably the wall. There is a more-than-fair chance his fist would go right through it - it wouldn't take much and Misu’s no slouch in the punching department. Instead he eyes the ugly wallpaper, faded and peeling away in brittle strips, as though it’s wronged him personally.

Misu is alone in the apartment. Amane is gone. Misu’s partner, and only permanent ally (or so he thought), had vanished in the night a week ago. He left a note at least, saying he was going, that he couldn’t stick around.

Misu is staying away from the windows as a rule in general. The curtains are drawn but old enough to be worn gauze thin in places - thin enough that he might be seen from the outside even through them and you never knew who was watching. Misu should be at work at headquarters right now. There are plenty of people looking for Misu and his employers and coworkers at Section Four are only the least hostile.

He hears a noise in the next room, the kitchen. It’s the sound of something or someone bumping into one of the cabinets. He has his gun out with the safety off in an instant. He trains it on the source of the sound as it appears around the kitchen counter.

Something it turns out, is the Roomba Misu has forgotten about, which trundles into view from behind the kitchen counter. It must have just finished its automated charging sequence. Misu holsters his gun and resettles himself on the couch. He watches the Roomba try to negotiate the transition between the faded linoleum of the kitchen floor and the decades-past-its-life-expectancy carpet in the rest of the apartment. The Roomba drives forwards, runs into the transition strip between the two rooms and gets stuck. Then it backs up a foot or two and repeats the whole pitiful process. Even when the Roomba manages to get its front wheels up over the transition, it hits the wall, having ended up somehow too close to the edge of the doorway. Each time the Roomba simply reverses and tries again.

It’s almost painful to watch and Misu finally averts his attention back to the decor. He doesn’t have to feel bad for the wallpaper. But the wallpaper was probably nothing to brag about even when it was new and he lets his eyes wander over the rest of shabby apartment he already knows all too well.

The door has a lock in the handle, and two separate deadbolts farther up the door - not unusual for this part of town. Misu might have installed more, but more might actually attract suspicion of anyone who was looking. Besides, locks are only as secure as the door they’re set in, and in this case that leaves Misu with less confidence than usual. Anonymity and mobility were the best defense. Any lock could be picked or broken - but they can’t kill you if they don’t know where you are to begin with.

Misu and Amane were staying here recently. Misu wouldn't normally retrace his steps so soon, but he finds he can’t help it. Misu hasn’t really dared to let himself hope that Amane will just come back - but he hasn’t ruled it out either.

That was probably the reason he found himself back at the apartment. A part of him still wanted to stay close in case Amane came back. If that was it, it was a stupid idea. Dead stupid. Amane wouldn’t be expecting him here anymore than anywhere else. In fact he’s probably less likely to come here than anywhere else - for the same reasons Misu shouldn’t have come back. Amane was smart - he wouldn’t come back here. For once, Misu supposes, he’s the one being reckless.

Across the room, the Roomba finally bounces off the door frame at just the right angle and releases a tiny, electronic trill of victory, drawing Misu's attention back to it. The quirky little machine has finally made it across the threshold into the main room. Then it sets off trundling around aimlessly, bumping into new walls and furniture.

Quirky was a nice word for the Roomba, a polite word. The damn thing was screwy. That made sense though, considering who had programmed it. The Roomba also had a three - inch knife attached to the front of it. Oh yeah, that was special Amane crazy, definitely. Misu might have become fond of Amane, but the guy had a few screws loose himself.

But who didn’t these days? Maybe it’s just the company he keeps - the business he’s in - but Misu’s starting to doubt there are many truly sane people left in the world - not that he can judge. Misu has his own damage, he’s just a little quieter about it. Less giggling like a maniac, more pressing the muzzle of the gun square between your eyes. Misu doesn’t talk, Misu acts.

Some people say they’ve worn many hats, Misu has worn many different uniforms. He’s traded fatigue green and mud brown for grey, traded grunge and urban camouflage for nickel-plated brass buttons. He’s had plenty of job titles: Terrorist, spy, assassin, thief, enforcer, agent, freedom fighter, comrade. Sometimes it just depends on who you ask - what side they happen to be on. The fact is that Misu doesn’t feel like he’s ever changed what he does all that much, just who he works for. The organizations didn’t really matter in the end, not to either of them. They were just new names and different dress codes. Misu and Amane had even been freelance for a while, before they had signed up with Section Four.

For Misu it was about his mission. It didn’t matter who he fought with or against today or tomorrow. His personal mission was about ends, not means. It wasn’t about revenge; it was about taking action, about doing something the government couldn’t ignore. Things that would force them to look up from their under-the-table bribes, and the over-the-table corporate handouts they were too shameless and well-connected to even bother hiding. He’d promised his mother that he’d change the world, promised her when the world had torn her heart out, carved up her soul and worked the husk of her to death. In the end the only thing left for her was him, and the only peace she could imagine was consigning what remained to fire. He was only a child then, but she’d made him promise that he’d change things someday. And as Misu fled the fire that consumed his mother and their meager home, he’d promised himself that he would. Whatever it took, he’d make them change.

The “them” is generally problematic in such mission statements. When one is angry and hurting, making the world burn - it just seems like the thing to do. “Fucking them all up,” as Amane put it. But while the implicit “they” has at least an indistinct, shadowy corporate governmental form in Misu’s mind - he’s not sure what it means to Amane. He doubts that Amane really knows what he wants - what he’s fighting for anymore. In fact, Misu isn’t sure he ever known.

They had never met before their first assignment together. Misu’s first impression of Amane was that he was quite mad - and opinion he hasn’t necessarily revised since then. The organization Misu had been working with at the time had put them together on someone else’s operation. It was a nasty plot against government intelligence, which ultimately fell apart spectacularly. But despite everything, they had worked surprisingly well as a team. Both of them were broken and jaded, but so very good at what they did - Misu with his gun and his fists, and Amane with his laptop and his tricky little tongue. Misu wouldn’t call it silver, but Amane sure seemed to be able to talk himself into anywhere, to talk people around in circles until they didn’t know what was right and they were shooting each other - doing Amane’s work for him.

Misu checks his watch, it’s almost dinner time. He knows without looking there’s nothing in the kitchen to eat. There was hardly anything when he and Amane were actually living here before and they certainly didn’t leave anything. The two of them had mostly lived off take out. If he wants to eat, he’ll have to go out and pick something up. Truth be told though, he isn’t sure yet. He gets up and goes to the kitchen anyway, finding a chipped glass in a cupboard and filling it with water from the sink.

On the way back to the couch he has to sidestep the Roomba as it appears suddenly around the edge of the coffee table and almost either trips or stabs him. Having averted the actual event he’s unsure which of the two it would have been, but definitely one or the other. It was a damn impractical thing to live with. Misu isn’t even certain that it actually sweeps like it’s supposed to. He doesn't see an excessive amount dust and crap on the floor so maybe.

Amane made the damn thing on a lark. Misu has no real idea why. Amane does things like that sometimes, when he gets bored - things like repairing and reprogramming a discarded outmoded piece of junk into the disturbing semblance of sentience. The taping a knife to it part - well that was more an all the time kind of thing for him.

And Amane had been really bored. He and Misu had been holed up in the apartment for a couple of weeks at the time. They were waiting for the heat to die down from their latest defection, and the bureaucrats to finalize their assignment to Section Four, the national security service, specifically the anti-terrorism task force. A part of Misu was amazed the government had agreed to it at all. But of course, who better to inform investigations into domestic terrorism than a couple of former terrorists - ones who’ve made enemies of just about every major group active in the country.

So they were stuck in the apartment for some time, and after something like the first week, Amane had disappeared into his bedroom with a crate of junk he’d turned up somewhere. The door creaked open two full days later and Amane emerged nonchalantly, preceded by the Roomba, whirring ahead on its tiny wheels. Amane went to the kitchen, where he proceeded to eat everything in sight and the Roomba drove about on its own, seemingly exploring the apartment, and cheerfully running into every single obstacle it could find.

The knife, incongruously attached to the Roomba by some unorthodox combination of bolts and duct tape, stabbing into anything it hit going forwards, and leaving little knife marks all around the walls and furniture, all exactly four inches above the floor. The coffee table in front of the couch was a relic of the eighties - and not the ever coming back into style retro sort - the ugly, blocky, just throw it out and be done with it kind. As the Roomba worked its way closer to the couch, Misu lifted his legs and crossed them casually, with both feet up on the coffee table. The thing could do whatever it wanted to the furniture, Misu didn’t care, but he didn’t particularly feel like letting it stab any of those little holes into his ankles.

Misu watches the Roomba make the same haphazard rounds, jabbing fresh holes into the already well marked drywall. Shaking his head to himself, Misu crosses his legs on top of the coffee table and attempts to turn his thoughts away from his absent partner again. Misu tries to think of his work at Section Four, of his next move, of plans for the future.

Misu always seems to be the one left standing when the plans inevitably fall apart. He’s is flexible, adaptable. That’s probably the main thing that’s kept him alive, that and paranoia - the paranoia that is both inevitable and generally encouraged in people in his line of work. But Misu has never been much of a planner and his thoughts inevitably circle back to the aching absence in his life.

He misses having Amane to watch his back. The crazy little shit, waving around his stupidly oversized handgun. Where he got the thing Misu will never know. If he weren’t a man of few words, he might have been tempted to make a joke about compensating at some point. He might have had to if Amane had stuck around much longer - crack a joke or two. Because somehow, Amane had become his friend, and that’s something Misu still hasn’t quite figured out. He doesn't have friends, he’s been alone so long, he’s not sure he can. And yet, what else had Amane become? Misu can almost admit that he misses him just because.

Misu really doesn't know how Amane got mixed up with terrorists to begin with. Once, between missions, when they were bored and coming dangerously close to bearing their souls to one another, and pretending that none of it mattered anyway, he asked him why. And Amane told Misu about his father who used to beat him when he didn’t do well enough in school, and for whom nothing ever seemed to be good enough. That was a long time ago, and now Amane’s entire life seemed to be dedicated to sending a big fuck you back to the world. Misu can understand that. But while it goes a long way towards explaining why Amane is the way he is, Misu’s still not sure it really explains why Amane is a terrorist. He’s not sure Amane really knows either.

He thinks of Amane’s grey and silver Section Four uniform jacket, identical to the one Misu is still wearing, left under the note - and now sitting safely in the very back of Misu’s locker at Section Four. Left like he was returning it, but folded neatly. Not a “fuck you”, instead, almost an apology. Almost because Misu cannot imagine Amane actually apologizing for anything, he’d probably choke to death on the words.

Misu is pulled out of his thoughts by a sound in the hall outside the apartment door. This building is almost entirely empty, barely a step away from being truly abandoned. There is no one else living in this part of the old building. Misu knows, he checked when they first chose the place, and again when he came back. He knows instinctively that it’s not Amane coming back, no matter what distant hopes he may have harbored.

Misu rises from the couch and draws his gun in a single movement. The door smashes open - all three locks failing, the door simply splintering around them. It’s a four man team, and Misu picks off the middle two with clean shots even as they’re framed in the doorway.

The first man shoots at Misu, narrowly missing as Misu moves, anticipating the shot. The man’s gun jams on the second shot and he draws a long knife charging at Misu. Misu drops low and sweeps the man’s feet out from under him. Misu draws himself back up and puts two bullets in his back before the man can even try to get up.

The fourth has used his comrades as a distraction and gotten close to Misu - too close. He’s a better fighter than his friend and after trading a few shots and blows, he manages to grab Misu and twist him into a chokehold. Misu feels the muzzle of the man’s gun press against the side of his head. Not good. He’s about an instant away from getting his brains blown all over the ugly coffee table.

Then, without warning the goddamn Roomba zips out from under the couch and stabs the man in the ankle, right through his combat boots. The man shouts in pain and kicks out instinctively. The Roomba, zipping past, is caught by the toe of his boot and flipped up into the air. It comes down an instant later with the clack of plastic on floor and the momentum carries it away, rolling like a coin on edge.

With his attacker momentarily off balance, Misu seizes the opportunity and turns the tables. Spinning out of his opponent’s loosened grip, and keeps turning. The man shoots but the shot goes wide, the bullet burying itself in the wall somewhere across the room. Misu comes back around smoothly, transferring his momentum into a punch. The punch is a wide, telegraphed swing, but it’s hidden by Misu’s body until the very last moment and hits the man square in the face before he even registers the attack. Misu isn’t a sadist, but there’s something about the wet crunch of the man’s nose under his fist that’s as satisfying as it is disgusting. He takes a step backwards, widening the space between him and his opponent, and flicks blood from the back of his hand. When the man advances again, and lifts gun to take aim again, Misu kicks the gun neatly out of his hand, pivots and executes another kick with the opposite leg. The second kick connects brutally with the man’s temple and drops him to the floor.

Still breathing heavily from the fight, Misu steps over the bodies, to where the Roomba is laying in a corner. It’s landed upside down and is making a continuous series of distinctly plaintive sounding beeps, its little wheels spinning uselessly in the air. Misu drops down on his haunches and turns it over. The beeping stops and the Roomba immediately races off, nearly stabbing Misu in the foot in the process. It runs into the wall about 10 feet later, having made no attempt to avoid it. The tip of the knife lodges in the wall and the distressed beeping resumes.

Misu sighs heavily, walks to it again and frees it. This time the Roomba makes a pleased sounding beep and heads for the door. Along the way it encounters the bodies of the four men. One of them groans when the Roomba’s knife stabs him shallowly in the side - so not quite dead then. The Roomba works its way around with only a couple more little stabs and zips off down the hallway.

Misu walks through the splintered door frame and into the dim hallway beyond, to the corner where the Roomba vanished. He hears beeping and turns the corner. Sure enough, it’s stuck itself to the baseboard at the end of the hall. Misu sighs again in exasperation and pulls the Roomba free once more. This time though, he doesn’t let it go. It’ll only get itself stuck again in a minute or two, excited and in unfamiliar territory. Instead he tucks it under his arm, being sure not to stab himself with the protruding blade. He looks over his shoulder at the corner, seeing the splintered door frame beyond in his mind’s eye. This safe house is certainly burned. He shouldn’t have come back and he definitely shouldn’t hang around any longer - not that he would want to. Crap though the apartment was before, it’s really ruined now. The coffee table was bad enough, but the addition of that much blood and bodies just isn’t Misu’s idea of good interior design.

Misu’s not sure Amane knows why he does half the things he does - He was just starting to think he understood some of them at least, but then Amane took off on his own and made it clear he didn’t want Misu to follow. Misu has tried on feeling betrayed, but it doesn't fit, because that isn’t what he feels. He just feels alone.

The men today were from the Council judging by their dress - old enemies. Misu and Amane had been working for them when they first met. The two didn’t leave under the best circumstances, and working for Section Four, for the government, well that makes them the worst sort of turncoat. There are a lot of people out there who have it in for Misu - Amane too, and heavens know, he’s probably only making fresh enemies, whatever he’s up to. Misu couldn’t stop Amane from leaving, but he doesn't have to just let him go either. He can go after him. Not to hunt him down, not to kill him, or to hurt him - Misu doesn’t even have high hopes for talking sense into Amane - that sounds like a hopeless proposition. But Misu is certain that wherever Amane is, he could use someone to watch his back.

**Author's Note:**

> As you may suspect, this fic was mostly write for the purposes of including the titular Roomba with a knife. If you're wondering where it went, please assume it's lurking somewhere in Misu's apartment during Shinku. Maybe he put it in a cabinet for a while for the security of his and Amane's ankles. Please know that in crazy Roomba AU headcanon land the Roomba goes on to have a long and happy life chasing Takano any time he comes by the apartment, much to Amane's amusement.


End file.
